For most people, the major hurdle in grasping modern insights into the nature of the universe is that these developments are usually phrased using mathematics.

My emotional investment is in finding truth. If string theory is wrong, I'd like to have known that yesterday. But if we can show it today or tomorrow, fantastic.

The beauty of string theory is the metaphor kind of really comes very close to the reality. The strings of string theory are vibrating the particles, vibrating the forces of nature into existence, those vibrations are sort of like musical notes. So string theory, if it's correct, would be playing out the score of the universe.

One of the wonders of science is that it is completely universal. It crosses national boundaries with total ease.

I was holding [my four-year-old daughter] and I said, 'Sophia, I love you more than anything in the universe.' And she turned to me and said, 'Daddy, universe or multiverse?'

Many different planets are many different distances from their host star; we find ourselves at this distance because if we were closer or farther away, the temperature would be hotter or colder, eliminating liquid water, an essential ingredient for our survival.

No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail.